Superintendent discusses school reports in Hawthorne

The New Jersey Department of Education released its 2013 performance reports last month for every public school in the state.

In Hawthorne, Superintendent Dr. Jill Mortimer said, while not every school passed every area of language arts or math the scores improved from last year.

This is the second year the new format of performance reports has been in effect. Mortimer said the state took scores and froze them into place and compared them to set targets. Mortimer explained that every few years the target goes up to get closer to 100 percent proficiency each year. The goal is to have every school at 100 percent proficiency by 2017.

She said each one of Hawthorne's schools had different targets to meet.

"Not all of our schools had to meet the same goal," Mortimer said. "Even if a school didn't meet the goal they were still doing well."

For example, Jefferson Elementary School didn't meet its target goals, but Mortimer said 78 percent of the school was still proficient and that they had more students pass this year than the year before.

"We are still making progress just not enough that the state wanted," she said.

The data collected for the performance reports was collected by tests given to the students last year during March, April and May. Mortimer said the district will look at patterns in scores over a couple of years to judge if there is problem. She said the staff will look at all sub groups of students and if there is a problem try to target interventions if someone isn't passing. She said for example, if special education students are not making progress each year, district officials will look to see what other ways the district can help the students.

"We're all working as hard as we can for the students of Hawthorne and we're doing the best we can," Mortimer said.